RJS writes an excellent post on Jesus Creed about the difficulty, in evangelical circles, of dealing openly with the problems presented by Biblical criticism, archeology and the natural sciences.
I could write about this all day. I think the answer to the question — “is there a conspiracy of silence about ‘problems’ with the Bible” — is yes, no, and sometimes.
Yes — I believe a great many pastors and educators know the problems and keep silent for fear of how their constituencies will react. Look at what happened to Pete Enns and at how his book — a relatively modest proposal in the bigger picture of Biblical scholarship — stirred up a hornet’s nest. There are broods of vipers in the Church who will strike at the first sign of flinching.
No — I believe a significant, significant, significant number of pastors and educators are living in denial about the problems. In the old “battle for the Bible” paradigm, critical methods were seen as prima facie invalid because they approached the Bible from a paradigm of unbelief. The result is that many have steeled themselves against even hearing and testing the claims of Biblical / historic / scientific criticism. They’re pretty sure Answers in Genesis has solved all this, and that’s the end of it.
Sometimes — it seems to me that there are more an more people in evangelical circles willing to take Biblical / historic / scientific criticism seriously. There are at least here and there local church leaders who remain engaged with trends in the academy (I’m blessed to know some personally). And at the same time, there are some GOOD reasons to subject the conclusions of critics to criticism. So-called “scientific exegesis,” all the rage in secular Biblical Studies, excludes a priori any “real” miracles behind any Biblical text, including the bodily resurrection of Jesus (note that this has noting directly to do with the relation of the Bible to the natural sciences — by “scientific” they mean an exegetical method that precludes the supernatural.) To the “scientific” exegetes, N.T. Wright is a fundamentalist — go figure.
The bottom line is that IMHO churches engaging the educated and informed young people of today, especially in a North American context, cannot, cannot continue to keep silent or live in denial and claim to be exercising their missional responsibilities.
6 replies on “A Conspiracy of Silence”
My church as a whole is totally unaware of all the issues dealing with the Bible. As for science, as far as I know, I am the only one in the church who accepts evolution, and because of this I have kept it to myself except for the leadership. But evolution was a breeze of a transition compared to the struggles I have now dealing with critical issues to the text itself, source documents, errors (I mean tensions:), and indeed, to be honest, sometimes things make a whole lot more sense if I just accept that the Bible is the work of fallible men. Indeed, I think in my own mind I have somewhat given up on ineerrancy, though I haven’t admitted it even to myself. I doubt I would ever admit it to anyone else even if that were the case.
I have raised some of these issues with my pastor. He is a pretty learned guy, and has dealt with some of them in the past. He presented me with some resources, not all of them very convincing. He is a very honest and patient man, and he would be the first to admit he doesn’t have all the answers and that some issues exist. But his unapologetic starting point is that the Bible is indeed innerrant and any issues or “problems” will be solved someday. I used to have that same starting position, but slowly that has been eroded away and now I think I am on the verge of making the flip. Either way, it clearly biases how we perceive the text when it comes to critical issues and possible conservative resolutions.
But as for your question, should the leadership be more open about these problems. I’m going to have to say no. Nearly everyone in my church is going about their business, totally ignorant of any problems brewing in the background and therefor very capable to keep to the simple faith that have first received. I don’t see their faith “improving” by shaking that simple world. My faith hasn’t improved. My faith has been shattered. Now, it might not have been this way if we had been more open about it in the past, the very few of us who stumble in on them pay the price of shock since it was always so hidden. I had run into some of these ideas before, but they were almost always presented from the conservative side and then quickly torn down. I thought it was just a lack of faith from those who didn’t believe. But after becoming convinced of the reality of common descent, something that can be verifying by mountains of empirical observation, slowly the first few chapters of Genesis began to lose their historical nature, and when I began researching to find the sharp line where the text became historical, well . . . things just got worse and worse with every stone turned. I know one thing, I can’t go back. I can’t simply choose not to accept evolution, it is simply true. And I have reached that point on several issues regarding the OT text. Will I remain a Christian? Not everyone who went down my path has, I have read many stories by deconverts who sound oftley similar to me. But I hope dearly that is not my choice, for if there is a personal God who regenerated me through faith in Jesus, to whom I repent, to whom I trust my soul, from whom I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, well then it surely that will be a reality in my life and once again I will gain confidence in that relationship. As for the Bible, once you have opened the door it is impossible to close it. But perhaps not all is lost. I am hoping to land somewhere such as where Enns perhaps is, that the Bible is totally from God but also totally from man and the second part can not be ignored. He wrote an interesting article on the Bible relating to history, such events as Moses in the basket, a clear literary device used at that time. His point was that the Bible IS God’s word, but HOW is it God’s words remains to be answered. Obviously he is hinting at the idea that it is not all historical as we understand the term, but he doesn’t come out and say it. And look what happened to him anyway. Perhaps now he will be more bold to develop his ideas, perhaps he will get a job at a secular university where real free speech and ideas are allowed. Thank God I work in secular job.
Young children, stay away from education.
If the purpose of textual criticism, archeology, and the sciences comes with a presupposition to undermine the text, then of course the tension one feels is frightening.
But if the God who created it all is also the author of all that is, then perhaps understanding the ways in which textual criticism, archeology and natural science underscores the truth of the text would be as enlightening as it would be encouraging. And I’m not referring to the Answers in Genesis crowd.
Perhaps the sole reading of material that comes from a biased viewpoint against the text, self-perpetuates one’s inability to see where the text communicates the greatest truth.
And perhaps instead of trying to explain the minute details of every aspect of our faith, our efforts would best be lived in living out those portions that we know with clarity.
Perhaps a self study on the accuracy within the text, to be charted out on a percentage based analytical pie chart, as it relates to the claims, historical, scientific, and otherwise–would give men as much reason to turn to scripture as the two things one can’t write a thesis of explanation on does to turn others away.
Just thinking out loud…
Kevin, I think you make some great points here. Yes, there are ways of dealing with the questions raised by textual criticism, etc. that start with presuppositions that lead to only one conclusions. I mentioned so-called “scientific exegesis” as one example of this. I think it’s also fair to say that the “minimalists” in Biblical archeology circles simply presume the Biblical text isn’t a witness to any real events at all. And I agree completely that there are many things the text is clear about — particularly its witness to the crucified and risen Christ.
Still, I think there are times when the problem is hermeneutical. Sometimes we’ve assumed that “literal” reading must be right when it’s possible that the text is more “literary.” I think I’m seeing many evangelical scholars who are more and more willing to acknowledge that our hermeneutical method has at times been more than a bit flat — and this opens up space for relaxing a bit about the finidngs of other sciences.
BTW, a good book on some of this is Ian Provan, et al., <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-History-Israel-Iain-Provan/dp/0664220908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227489299&sr=8-1A” Biblical History of Israel. Deals with many of these presuppositional questions.
Oops: A Biblical History of Israel.
admin/dop?
I STRONGLY agree, LITERARY context (i.e. what genre of writing it is, what it’s original purpose was, what context it is seen in) is all encompassing as to accurate understanding of the text’s literal usefulness.
If literary contextualization is accurate, then to me a more literal understanding can be applied. (Because it can not be understood for literal meaning if the underlying conditions of its original communication are not accurate.)
I hope that makes sense…